Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 01_ Outcast - Aaron Allston [102]
There was a holocam mounted at the ceiling corner. It was pointed straight at him—straight at the spot where people entered or left the turbolift. If it was being monitored at this moment, he would be discovered. He fuzzed it, hoping that he had not yet been detected, and left it that way for the seconds it took him to shut the turbolift door and then pull the three unconscious guards to a point outside the holocam's line of sight. Then he let it return to normal operation.
He trotted down the corridor to the left, brushing his fingers across each door as he passed, fuzzing each security holocam as he came within its range of vision.
What he found curious was that the prison was not being flooded by false Jedi. Any force that could infiltrate and replace the Jedi could do so more readily with the government's cooperation, which meant that the government and the Jedi should be hand in hand, which in turn would make it easy for them to send an army of false Jedi down here after him. But only the fake Tahiri had come. Why? Had the government somehow held out against the imposters? He felt a little stirring of hope.
On the other hand, perhaps there were two or more groups of imposters at work—groups that did not cooperate. The Jedi could have been infiltrated by one, the government by another. That would make sense of what was happening here.
He felt a pulse in the Force as he neared one oversized door. Yes, Valin, however diminished, was beyond it. He got to work on the door security. But the security panel was new and of a very sophisticated type, obviously installed because of the important nature of the captive beyond.
Seff ignited his lightsaber and plunged it into the durasteel door. In less than a minute, for it was not as formidable as a blast door, he cut a large gap into it.
Down the corridor, the turbolift door slid open. The false Tahiri stepped through. Her hood concealed her features. She carried no lightsaber.
She spotted Seff, but instead of rushing toward him, she turned to stare up at the holocam monitoring the turbolift. She began jumping up and down, waving at it.
Seff sighed. Now she was using the prison's resources against him. Things would be more difficult.
He ducked into the chamber beyond the newly ruined door. It was a storehouse, packed high with old furniture, broken exercise equipment, computers dating back to the Old Republic … and a huge rolling rack from which hung the carbonite prison of Valin Horn.
Valin had obviously been bound when frozen. He stood, arms behind him, a statue in mottled gray-black with an expression of pain and outrage on his face, sealed in a rectangular plate. A monitoring panel was embedded along the right rim of the carbonite.
Seff moved to it, hurriedly entered a series of commands. The tiny screen read, ERROR. ENTER AUTHORIZATION CODE.
Seff glowered at the apparatus. Now was not the time to face one final layer of security.
A strident breep-breep-breep alarm filled the air. Then Seff's ersatz Mando opponent squeezed through the hole in the door.
Seff moved toward him, reigniting his weapon, and slashed to cut this persistent enemy down, but the man took the blow on one skillfully interposed gauntlet. The blow did not penetrate. It was clear that he was wearing true Mandalorian crushgaunts made of beskar.
Seff spun, bringing his blade down at the false Mando's shoulder. His target caught the blade on his other gauntlet cuff—clearly, he'd had some training against lightsabers—but Seff maneuvered his hilt up, the blade down, using the gauntlet cuff as a lever point, and the blade slapped against the shoulder, a lighter blow than originally intended.
The false Mando's tunic burned away there and caught fire at the edges. As Seff drew back, he could see that the breastplate beneath, too, was beskar.
All right, then. The neck would be his next target. He lunged, arcing his blade in a visually bewildering attack—
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